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Meeting Prep – Load & Start a Meeting

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Overview  

This document assumes you understand the concepts of Creating Meetings and Preparing the Agenda, and that you have done both these activities and are ready to Load & Start a meeting, perhaps for the first time just to review the flow and to practice prior to running a live meeting (with members).   

NOTE: This document only walks through the initial preparation of Loading and Starting a meeting you have perhaps recently created, but may not actually be wishing to run live yet (with members).  It is important to know that you can START and END a meeting as many times as you wish to review the flow, practice certain meeting activities (adding Amendments, working with the Consent Agenda, add a new Item during a meeting, etc.) and to modify the Agenda as much as you wish, prior to starting a live meeting with members.    

We’ll start with opening the Meeting Manager and selecting meetings that you have created & prepared within the Groups and Meetings Home screen.  If you have any questions about the following topics, please use the following links to access more detailed documents on each topic. 

Details / Sequence of Events 

The steps below should be followed to correctly select, start and proceed to run a basic meeting. 

Launch & Log into the Meeting Manager with your User Name and Password.  If you have questions about this step, see this link: User Access

You will always be presented with the product update dialogue box.  For purposes of this document, we’ll assume your version is current. 

Select Skip Update / Continue on the initial sign-in screen below:

Meeting Manager – Sign-In

Select the Group & Meeting 

After sign-in to the Meeting Manager, the Home / Select Group screen will appear as shown below.  

Select Group with a single click, in the center panel of the screen (below).  

Select Meeting with a single click of the meeting on the right of the screen. 

NOTE:  It is important that ALL MEETINGS be created on the Home/Select Group & Meeting screen and be present as a Meeting on the right-hand side of this screen, in order to Load and Run a Live Meeting.    

Home – Select Group & Meeting

Meeting Preview 

Next, you will see Step 1: Configuration Setup, Step 2: Load Agenda and Step 3: Load Meeting options on the far left as shown on the screen below.   

Meeting Set-Up – Agenda Summary

Quickly review the Configuration and the Agenda names to confirm they are indeed correct for the meeting you wish to work with. Generally, they should be correct as they are always saved with this meeting during the initial setup.  

You will also see that the Agenda associated with this meeting will be previewed in the center of the screen.  

NOTE:  If you wish to simply make changes to the Agenda at this time, you DON’T need to Load/Start the meeting.  Simply select Edit Agenda at the top of the screen. The Agenda Manager will open for this specific meeting agenda.  

For more detail regarding working with Agendas or Configurations, please see the following links: 

Load the Meeting 

Select Load Meeting, the green button on the bottom left of the screen ABOVE. Do this anytime you wish to enter the meeting. Remember, you can start and end a meeting as many times as you want.  Each time, you’ll start a separate meeting so you can run multiple meetings for preparation or practice before starting an actual live meeting with members. Each practice meeting’s details, results and minutes will be separate, and thus your final live meeting results will also be distinctly separate and are the only ones you will need to work with when preparing your final minutes for publishing.   

The following screen will display each time you Load a Meeting. At this point, members will be able to sign into the meeting from their Member App devices, waiting for the roll to be called.   

Start a Meeting

Before pressing Start Meeting

At this point, you have an opportunity to review and edit any other changes that may affect this meeting.  Here you can select the 3-bar drop-down menu on the top left of the screen above to access the Main Menu Configuration & Agenda Settings as shown below: 

Change Meeting Settings – Before Starting a Meeting

For more information on the various menu configuration and agenda settings, please see the document links below: 

Start the Meeting 

Select Start Meeting at the top of the screen above and the following appears: 

Start the Meeting – RollCall

NOTE:  We recommend before starting a live meeting with members, that you’ve prepared the key components properly.  If needed, please review the instructional links below for Meeting Preparation. 

At this time, you can proceed to open and practice your meeting by continuing and selecting Roll Call.  If you want more detail about the various aspects of running a meeting, either for practice or running live with members, please see the following document link: 

  • Running a Basic Meeting 

Ending the Meeting 

Assuming you are just preparing, practicing, or confirming your meeting details and not running it live with members, you can END the Meeting at any time you wish while going through the agenda.  You don’t have to run through all agenda items, nor do you have to formally adjourn the meeting. You can just select the red End Meeting button at any time.  Of course, in a Live Formal meeting with your members, you “would” run through all agenda items, take all actions as directed by the Chair and Adjourn the Meeting before selecting the End Meeting Button. This will ensure that all the meeting activities, results and minutes are captured   

Select the red End Meeting button (lower right corner of the Meeting Manager screen)   

Meeting Manager – Ending a Meeting

You will be prompted to confirm you are ready to end the meeting.  

Confirmation to End Meeting
  • Select OK, if you wish to End the Meeting.  

Notes / Special Situations  

If you are having issues that are not successfully addressed above, please call OpenMeeting Customer Support at 320.249.0555.   

While practicing your meetings, you may wish to confirm the operation of the Public Display, the Discussion Manager and the Member App.  You can prepare / practice in a meeting with any or all these devices.  Please see the following document links for more information on engaging these device apps:  

The following links will provide more details regarding additional special topics and situations that may be pertinent to you while practicing or running a LIVE meeting with members:  

Meeting Manager
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